Write, Read, and Discuss the News.

Welcome to the New Newsvine Blog

Newsvine is changing. We're in Beta and nearing the biggest change in the history of the site. We've got a new support section. Now we've got a new blog.

We're starting this blog nearly from scratch because in refreshing the site, we want to renew our commitment to making Newsvine the best news discussion site possible.

One of the most important parts of fulfilling that commitment is improving communication to the people who make Newsvine's success possible:

Newsviners. Our users.

This version of Newsvine Blog doesn't have much content as of this writing - but from the developers to the moderators, we're going to fill it up. There will be features to explain, issues to discuss, and a whole new site to help with.

Discuss this post

I'm excited about this and a little nervous. I hope it signals a new era of frequent missives from Newsvine Global HQ and ensuing conversations that cultivate new tools, cooler features, and better users.

I also look forward to when this doesn't look like a nbcnews.com page and instead is a column on the new Newsvine.

Geeze, me too. I'm not sure what the "trough" is, but this looks like it (like the old msnbc blood-letting pages). ;0)

Yeah, I understand that these gray discussions don't have the best connotations, VerbalBarb - but we felt it'd be better hosted here than on NV Classic or a product we haven't yet released.

tyler, you said better users.

Can you explain this? Please?

Key term's 'cultivate' there - didn't mean to imply that I hope we get a wave of new 'better users' - though I think New Newsvine will be orders of magnitude better at handling population and I obviously have a vested interest in seeing that population growth. More meta-discussion can help Newsviners use the site better.

I can only hope that this new format might help me remedy the problems I've had with viewing my comments and responding.... fingers crossed

Not sure. But this certainly explains the massive drop-off in NV participation of late.

Do you really think so?

I must say I envision people being picked last or not at all when it comes to the Nations. Is Newsvine to become a site based on popularity? That's going to hurt quite a few of us, me included, I know.

tyler says: I also look forward to when this doesn't look like a nbcnews.com

Actually, I think the point is to be more integrated with nbcnews.com; a new jointness where legacy Newsvine users mix more with the 'general population'. Where the wiser veterans espouse their philosophical knowledge to the public, -as frustrating as that may seem-. The isolation of the clique, gives way to the enlightenment of the masses.

This was done by the musical entertainers during Mao's tenure, where bands of movie stars, entertainers, poets, and writer's traveled among the countryside to educate and enlighten the population at large, giving them a sense of patriotism and purpose for the country in their lives, but then I digress.

I wouldn't say old-timer, more like Bodhisattva, the enlightened one, enlightening the dark for lost such as myself from your postings. Or perhaps like the traveling Confucius expounding the lessons of our earthy existence to all that will hear,..

I have to say that the layout of this looks very impressive, very appealing to the eye. I am torn between the Classic and the Beta, but I guess as long as the Beta is easy to use, won't lose my friends and won't restrict access to postings for people, I don't have a problem with it. I also have a secret yen for shiny new toys, and this looks nice and shiny..:o)

It is truly sad that when Newsvine changes from Groups to Nations that we will no longer be permitted to have the privacy we have become accustomed to and will no longer have a “Group Talk” module that is heavily used by many Groups.

IMO this will discourage the growth and expansion of Nations / Newsvine

No one needs to have their avatar displayed a gazillion times. It's so 1999. I hate that. Who cares? Who wants to see tiny squished pictures of already tiny squished pictures? NBC pgs always make my hard disk hum louder from so many graphix to load up & I swear it's gotten worse since the FB hookup. *Post to my FB wall* pffft. Why? Who wants some totally random no-context comment popping up there? Not that I ever use FB. It's boring pointless drivel. And all the FB ppl are rude. NBC Latino is unmoderated & horrific in commentary since that switched to FB only. Who needs em? I loathe this obsession w/ FB that every website seems to have. It ain't the hub of the universe for the majority of ppl. I am never posting to FB from NV. Get over that nonsense.

If this is what beta looks like, Dowser can do a video of me skipping off into the sunset. Yuck.

PS>Can we please get rid of that annoying BS ad of the cop holding the virulently flashing radar gun? Are you trying to gives ppl seizures?

scar... I sooooooo needed to read you tonight! LOL ..Christmas depression has set in (some might understand that; others, not so much:) and a good dose of your 'tellin' it like it is' - is always uplifting. lol

I get that "hum" too.

FB and NBC - Chummy, aren't they!! What one doesn't think of, the other will, kinda like puppies. The key is to keep lots of papers around, to make clean-up easier.

Puppies don't make sense, they just try new things to see if they can get away with it. But, if either one of them starts 'digging' on my Column, or chewing up my articles, or drooling on them with "boring pointless slobber drivel," that's where I put my foot down!

PS>Can we please get rid of that annoying BS ad of the cop holding the virulently flashing radar gun? Are you trying to gives ppl seizures?

Well, of course! It's a test. If we can pass that, then we'll be ready for Beta/FB Newsvine.

We're in Beta and nearing the biggest change in the history of the site.

I thought Feb. 7, 2013 launched the biggest change in the history of the site, it's going to be really tough to top that disaster.

It seems to me that the best thing you could do is go back to the old Newsvine platform. That one was working fine, minus a tweak here and there. But no, you guys had to listen to whatever moron you were listening to, and create the news blog from hell, causing a mass exodus and doubling the membership of The NewsTalkers.

This version of Newsvine Blog doesn't have much content as of this writing - but from the developers to the moderators, we're going to fill it up. There will be features to explain, issues to discuss, and a whole new site to help with.

Sounds good! It'll be really nice to hear more from the staff and developers on what's happening to the New Newsvine!

Sounds great, always have been a supporter of change and advancement, afterall this is the internet and social network: As we grow, we prosper in knowledge and awareness: Always a pleasure to share in Newsvine with my fellow/fella Newsviners! Can't wait !

I agree that change does often lead to confusion. However confusion invariably leads to learning, growth, and development. So far from being a bad thing confusion becomes the fuel for expanding our knowledge and intellect. Your mind and spirit is just like your body. If it is never challenged it becomes fat and lazy or perhaps atrophies and become useless. I am not particularly fond of the new variation here on the Vine either but now I am challenged to be creative and work around its inherent stumbling blocks.

It only just occurred to me, but I would really like to track (or retrieve) not just my comments, but those of my friends more easily. The old NV had this feature where the avatars of those who replied were up on the header of the article or seed, but what borked it was that there were also the votes up next to each avatar so that nefarious gaming resulted.

Let's hope this is the beginning of a new high in correspondence between Staff and Membership.

That's ambitious. But it's what we should be aiming for.

"That's ambitious" (?!) "Should be aiming for" (?!) Sounds like improving the level of correspondence isn't even in your sights right now. The lack of communication between NV Staff and the membership has always been a contentious issue on this site, a "new high" should not be very difficult to achieve.

I don't think so. We need, really,really need the ability to post links in comment boxes! At NewsTalkers they can post links, images and even videos in their comment boxes.

'Strike Out"? How often do you use that? Ever?

Undo and Redo? I can do that on my mouse! We need to be able to post links in the comment boxes. Are we suppose to make a mess of our comments by posting links in this form, http://thenewstalkers.com/profile/JerryVerlinger, forcing people to copy and paste the link into a new tab instead of simply clicking on a link in the comment box they're reading?

Please Tyler, tell us this comment box is not the best we're gonna get.

We need, really,really need the ability to post links in comment boxes! At NewsTalkers they can post links, images and even videos in their comment boxes.

I just saw a comment where Tyler posted a link. So I went poking around and discovered that if you click on "use XHTML Mode instead" you get a "link" option. However, I tried it and when I attempted to switch back to 'Easy Mode' my text remained in HTML mode. So that's not really a viable option.

I look forward to this. I believe the NV Blog will help us all to understand the unknown with a place to get help now. After all when I was new to NV a few years back, I had a lot to learn then also. I look forward to the help to understand and navigate. Thank you Tyler, Sally and to all the NV Team. This is good news for sure! :)

What is the "Newsvine Blog" exactly? Is this part of the new beta version? I've been back and forth with beta and classic. The new beta is missing about 80% of the functionality of classic. And the grey text? Why grey text?

What is the "Newsvine Blog" exactly? Is this part of the new beta version? I've been back and forth with beta and classic.

We decided it would be better hosted here rather than on NV Classic or on a product we haven't released yet.

The new beta is missing about 80% of the functionality of classic.

The new Newsvine has the ability to write articles, seed links, post comments, track conversations, participate in groups and publish your own column all within the great community that already exists here on Newsvine. I'd say it has over 80% of the functionality of Classic. True, a few features are missing but that doesn't mean they won't make a comeback in the future after we launch.

Does fewer trolls mean more sensorship? Or will the new vine simply be a more exclusive group of collective thinking individules, I like diversity and free expression. I can sort through the trolls myself.

Agreed with scar. There is a place in the world of the internet for groups of like-minded people to get together and discuss things without the whole web getting to see the conversation. I don't care what Zuckerberg thinks, at times there IS a need for privacy. Some conversations just don't need trolls and when a group is involved email is not an adequate substitute.

Once NV takes way that ability to go to a quiet place where the outside world is excluded isn't there a risk of losing membership due to that?

We're in the final stages of fixing critical bugs and adding a bit of polish to a few key features. We've been in Beta for the past few months and we've had a few hundred users give it a test run. We plan to announce the switch over a few days in advance and then the actual transition will be instantaneous and won't require any updates or action on your part.

Always use the Report a Bug form. Feel free to also discuss them here but using the Report a Bug form helps us out a lot. Not only do we get helpful diagnostic information it also helps us track and fix them.

Also, if you're using IE9 and having issues make sure you check to make sure that Internet Explorer is not running in IE7 compatibility mode. There's a really good chance that it is and if so it's going to cause several issues.

I can see the type better. That's good. But everything on the page is so much bigger (which would include the ads, natch...), that might make things more difficult to navigate. Ferinstance, howdoIgetoutofthispage

When or if it works, which it wasn't doing last night ... had to just close out and start over. But apparently there will NOT even be ANY tracking in the new version, just chronological order by entry time?

Owners/mgmt/Tyler?: It has been close to a month since it was reported to you folks that some (many?) members were being denied access to Google Adsense. One of the last words we heard from y'all was that you would contact Google and fix this problem, yet the problem still continues, with no farther updates from y'all! It was also said (at about that time) that your main concern was the "Power Users", has that affected your approach to resolving the problem for the little users with Google? Do you have any approximate time frame that could be mentioned that the "Common/Little Users" here on the vine will be/or not be allowed to participate in the advertising revenue such as has been done for the elite users? I realize that we little/non elite users here on the vine do not seem to be as important as the power/elite users, however if we are to be cut out of the loop, it would be extremely kind of y'all to at least man up and tell us? Perhaps you can take a moment and tell us where this group stands in the New and Improved NewsVine plans?

Am I correct in assuming Newsvine is now a blog on NBC.com and at some point NV will no longer maintain it's own site? I avoided the MSN threads on Newsvine because I don't like the format and the people commenting aren't members of Newsvine community. Oh well, what's done is done like it or not.